BEIJING: Brazil received 600 liters of Chinese-produced COVID-19 inactivated vaccine concentrate, for São Paulo’s plan to inject its state citizens in a mass vaccination in January. The vaccine will assist Brazil in its battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 175,000 nationwide.
It is the second batch of the Chinese vaccine after 120,000 doses arrived in November. São Paulo’s governor Joan Doria was at the airport on Thursday to welcome its arrival, according to the company.
To save vaccine package materials such as bottles and corks, more Chinese vaccine producers, including another frontrunner company CanSino, are preparing to export the vaccine as raw pulp instead of complete, bottled vaccines, a senior expert working with SF Express, who is in charge of COVID-19 vaccine global logistics but prefers not to be named, told the Global Times on Friday.
Brazilian National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) has received the data of the late-stage trials in Brazil and is in the process of evaluating it.
Results are expected to be released by December 14, São Paulo’s governor João Doria said at a conference on Thursday.
Tests in Brazil have been coordinated since July by São Paulo-based Butantan Institute in 16 scientific research centers spread across seven Brazilian states and the Federal District, according to a statement Butantan Institute previously sent to the Global Times.
In November, the first batch of 120,000 doses arrived in São Paulo, making Brazil the first country in Latin America to receive a vaccine against the coronavirus.
The State Government expects Butantan will obtain ANVISA’s approval of the immunizer by January 2021 and apply a mass inoculation for São Paulo citizens with the Chinese-developed vaccine. These two batches of CoronaVac doses are under storage for further mass vaccination across the state.
The clinical study has reached the level necessary to open research and analyze the effectiveness of the vaccine named CoronaVac. To date, 74 volunteers have become infected, a number higher than the minimum required for this stage, which provided for at least 61 contaminated participants, Butantan Institute said in the statement.
Brazil’s Senate later on Thursday approved a presidential decree that appropriates 2 billion reais ($388 million) to buy the vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, Reuters reported. The funds will go to the federal biomedical center Fiocruz to buy and later produce the British vaccine in Brazil.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who was tagged as a pro-US politician, also a political rivalry of João Doria, was under fire for accusing the Chinese-produced vaccine and politicizing the immunization, especially during the temporary trials halt due to a suicide unrelated to the vaccine of a voluntary participant in mid-November.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
